Whassup with OLD people??

First of all, to the ever-offended among you, get over your dang selves! Cap'n Bob happens to be a certified, card-carrying AARP'er, and I'm many years older than the teak decks of my schooner, so I have room to talk. Even in my infirmity, I still get around pretty well for a Senior Salty-Dog Scalawag of a Sailor. Having said that, I still have to call 'em as I see 'em, and I say there are TWO UNIVERSAL TRUTHS about old people:

1) Old people NEVER know when they're in the way.

2) They are ALWAYS in the way!

Yes, that's what each and every one of you has to look forward to, as the hands of time keep slapping you upside the head. You just become like that one piece of furniture in the den everybody trips over. Even I am slowing down as the years roll by. Why, I was playing full-court shuffleboard with the young 'uns until my mid-50's, but nowadays I walk more than I run. But I'm still young enough at heart to share with you my greatest pet peeve of all, which involves old people about 99% of the time.....

The Federal Government, in conjunction with the various State Departments of Transportation, realized that as people get older, they sometimes become a bit more frail (usually), a bit more forgetful (always), and it tends to be harder for them to walk from point A to point B, or just about any other alphabetical point (invariably). For that reason, there have been laws passed creating parking zones, to accommodate these special needs. These zones are always right up front near the door, to make life just a tad easier for people enjoying their golden years. So far so good on this parable, wouldn't you say? Keep reading.

To prevent some less-needy pigs and hogs from taking up these handicap parking areas, the Government created a sign for the elders to post inside their car....usually dark blue with white lettering, stating that the driver of this here vehicle is qualified as a Certified Old Coot, making it legal to use the special parking area. In theory, the driver would keep that blue-and-white sign on the seat of the car, in the glove compartment (which absolutely never contains gloves by the way), on the floorboard, in the side pocket of the door, or somewhere handy. Once the person arrives at the destination, usually a 7/11 or Home Depot, and pulls into the ever-so-convenient handicap-accessible parking slot, they are supposed to turn off the car, put on the parking brake, and place the blue-and-white sign on that little bar that holds up the rear view mirror, displaying it for all to see. It's their way of saying "Yes, I know I'm in this spot, but by golly I'm eligible and I've earned it." There's a little cut-out place on the blue & white sign, to make it just as easy as pie to hang it up there on the mirror, whenever you occupy a special parking spot. Easy on, easy off. Exactly as the powers-that-be intended. Great theory. What a lovely, lovely world we live in.

OK - here's what gripes my backside worse than somebody spittin' in my taters. Attention Old People Of The Planet: Once you go inside that store and git yer prescriptions, or yer case of Metamucil, or yer buy-one-get-one-free Giesha Brand Mandarin Oranges or whatever the heck you're buyin', and you come back to get in the car and drive again, you TAKE THE STINKIN' SIGN DOWN! Are you not even aware of yourself? Your hearing is fading, your eyesight is a trainwreck, your reaction time is worse than a drunken sailor (and I should know), and there you go! Hoppin' behind the wheel of your Escalade or Suburban or Buick Riviera, with a full 30% of your field of vision completely blocked by that well-intended blue-and-white sign. Did you not think maybe that's why they put the little hanging tag on there? On, off, on, off, that sort of thing? Hell, why don't you just go and get the entire front windshield painted blue-and-white, so you can't see a daggone thing? Makes as much sense! By all that is sacred, if I were a cop I'd spend my days and nights pulling these people over, ticketing them, and ordering them to traffic court at the very least, or more than likely to a psychiatrist or medical doctor to evaluate if these people need to still be plummeting around the streets, in a 2000-pound battering ram they can't see out of. Nobody I've ever seen has done the research, but I'd be willing to bet a huge number of senior-related traffic accidents occur when the blue-and-white is blocking their baby blues.

The other day some scientists were trying to explain Stonehenge again. For the 10,000th time. Yeah, yeah, the Druids placed all those stones there as some kind of religious shrine. Stones that weighed 50-times what anybody could really move. NO WAIT. Somebody else says it's a crude Astrological calendar. NO WAIT. No YOU wait. The Cap'n took some shore leave to do a little research, and after a couple of flaggons of rum at Old Tom Hodges' Place, I figured the whole thing out. Only took about 5 minutes. What do we know about the UK in ancient times? We know that at some point a liquored-up Scotsman or Welshman or Brit of some kind took his walking stick, smacked a rock with it, and the rock fell into a hole. Yes sir and madam, that was the day golf was born. But even back in the Dark Ages, not everyone was rich enough to afford a nice set of clubs, a cart, caddy, godawful plaid knickers, a Callaway Big Bertha driver, and the greens fees the Sherriff of Nottingham was trying to elicit from the serfs of Olde Englande. The Druids, a kind of short but crafty people with an odor of aged barley on their breath, decided to take advantage of this plight and create a new industry. Years later, this same principle was copied in Miami Beach, Myrtle Beach, and Atlantic City. When you don't have room for a full golf course, what do you do? You build a miniature one. With big 'ol windmills, wacky giant rodents, that sort of thing. Well, The Druids did the best they could, but there wasn't much in the way of building materials back then, so they did the easiest thing they could think of -- contact the same aliens that left those big stone figures on Easter Island, and get them to arrange a similar kind of spooky stone gathering, in a semi-circle where people could bring the kids on weekends for a jolly good time. If the original "Putt-Putt Stonehenge" sign hadn't eroded over the years, there never would have been a so-called mystery. So there. That's the truth of the matter. And I'll bet you were doubting my credibility when you first started reading.....